


License to Drive (1988): My Thoughts

by KaibaSlaveGirl34



Series: The Two Coreys [25]
Category: License to Drive (1988), Original Work
Genre: Cars, Community: comment_fic, Diary/Journal, Driving, F/M, Inspiration, Morality, Reviews, Teenagers, Tumblr: otpprompts, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25926724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaibaSlaveGirl34/pseuds/KaibaSlaveGirl34
Summary: My thoughts on the 1988 filmLicense to Drive..
Relationships: Mercedes Lane/Les Anderson, Mrs. Anderson/Mr. Anderson, Natalie Anderson/Karl (License to Drive (1988))
Series: The Two Coreys [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/4617
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	License to Drive (1988): My Thoughts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Harry2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harry2/gifts).



> Hey there, my fellow writers and readers. I hope you’re all doing great with your stories (and getting plenty of time to battle writer’s block too). Well, here’s a new essay/review of the 1988 film License to Drive that I cooked up one day. Hope you like reading it as much as I did working on it. 
> 
> Disclaimer: The geniuses at 20th Century Fox own the film License to Drive. I own the fanfics that I cook up from time to time.

**License to Drive (1988): My Thoughts**

Picture this. You’re 16 years old, and you’re looking forward to getting your driver’s license. However, fate (and what seems to be an unlucky combination of circumstances) steps in and makes it look like you’re in big trouble, as well as one heck of a crash course during one seemingly really big night.

Well, that’s exactly what happens to Les Anderson and his friends Dean and Charles in the really awesome and inspiring 1988 film **License to Drive**.

“Think of your license as a credit card — sooner or later, you gotta break it in.”

* * *

_Les Anderson (Corey Haim) is eagerly looking forward to getting his driver’s license — which means freedom for a teenager who takes the bus to school, and a way to possibly pick up girls._

_One girl whom Les has his eye on happens to be none other than Mercedes Lane (Heather Graham). However, she seemingly already has a boyfriend named Paolo (Michael A. Nickles), who drives a Ferrari._

_A few days later, Les is picked up by his friend Dean (Corey Feldman), Dean’s mother (Jill Jaressi) and younger sister (Kimberly Hope in her only film role), and they go to a birthday party for one of their classmates. While there, Dean engages in locker-room talk with Les and Charles (Michael Manasseri), asking if they have ever wondered what kind of car some of the girls there would lose their virginity in; Charles replies that Dean never ceases to amaze him._

_Soon, the trio sees Mercedes arrive; Les says that he’s “bumped into” her a million times, but she’s never bumped into him once._

_Then, Paulo appears and attempts to convince Mercedes to leave with him; she refuses while heading over to the punch bowl, saying, “Listen, you don’t own me. Women have rights in this country — not like Kuwait or Pakistan, where they **worship** their men.”_

_Wanting to end the argument, she tells Paolo, “Oh, and if you’re wondering about next Saturday night, I just remembered — I already have a date.” When Paolo asks with whom, she points to Les._

_The next day, Les is picked up from school by his Dad (Richard Masur), who is driving their Grandpa’s Cadillac (as Grandpa has taken Dad’s BMW, not wanting to drive his own Caddy over long distances). Les is initially embarrassed, but grows excited when his Dad explains that he thought he can drive the Cadillac for a little bit (with his Dad supervising, of course)._

_Reaching an upcoming corner, Les sees Mercedes walking down the street, and begs his Dad to let him drive the car by himself, to impress her. Les’ Dad gives in, but Les’ plan to just drive Mercedes home takes another turn, when she tells how she’s going across town to see a friend. Wanting to impress her, Les drives her there._

_On his way back home, Les comes across his Dad, who is very upset that Les broke his word._

_The next day, Les and his twin sister, Natalie (Nina Siemaszko), both take the driver’s test via computer. Though Natalie finishes quickly, Les becomes flustered, and eventually fails. Angered, he ‘boxes’ the monitor, causing all the computers to shut down. As DMV attempts to recover the data, they allow Les to take a driving test, feeling that since his twin sister scored highly, he should also be good once the data is recovered._

_Natalie also takes a driving test, wherein the instructor is very calming. Les is given an instructor, who only has one stipulation: if Les can keep the cup of coffee he has from spilling, he passes._

_Les manages to make it through, and gets his license... but seconds later, the instructor in the computer room tells that after recovering the results, Les has failed, and tears up his license in front of him!_

_Les comes home to an enthusiastic family, and lies to them, telling them that he’s a ‘free man.’ However, when his Mom (Carol Kane) does the laundry some time afterwards, she finds the ‘Failed Test’ paper in his pants pocket, and soon the entire family knows. Les’ father even grounds Les for 2 weeks for lying._

_Les’ friends even try to get him to come out due to getting his license, but he lies, claiming he has other things to do. Later on that evening, Les gets a call from Mercedes, asking if he’s still going to take her out. Les lies, claiming he’s on his way (after making sure his parents are sound asleep)._

_Les manages to get his Grandpa’s Cadillac out of the garage, and picks up Mercedes. They initially attempt to go to a club, but Les is refused entrance by the bouncer; while Mercedes does get in, she is surprised when she sees Paulo with another woman named Veronique (Charlie Spradling in an uncredited cameo). Paulo explains that Veronique is moving in with him, and asks Mercedes what kind of drink she is having; she replies, “Nothing” and then angrily slaps Paulo, much to the amusement of Les. She then quickly grabs a nearby bottle of champagne, and returns outside. However, Les’ problems are increased when he and Mercedes take notice of a tow-truck beginning to tow away the Cadillac; Les manages to get the car untowed, but ends up paying over all the money he has — almost eighty dollars._

_After Mercedes apologizes for the whole mess, Les admits he should’ve given the car to the valet in the first place. Mercedes then says that she knows a place with plenty of free parking; so, they go to a lookout point high above the city. When Les asks Mercedes how she ever found the lookout point, she replies that someone she knew used to take her there sometimes; when Les is silent, she corrects him, saying, “My father used to take me here to show me how beautiful the world could be if you could step away and see it at a distance.”_

_When Les offers to get a blanket for Mercedes to sit on and rushes over to the trunk of the car, Mercedes smiles and remarks that he sure comes prepared. Les agrees, saying to himself, “Like a Boy Scout.”_

_However, during their time there, Mercedes finishes off the bottle of champagne, and ends up dancing on the hood of the car, and caving in the hood when she causes Les and her to fall on it! As he gets her back in the car, she ends up knocked out from her drinking escapade._

_Les then goes over to Dean’s place, where Dean manages to take care of the dented hood by banging it back into proper condition. Both Dean and Charles are eager to see Les’ license, and claim that they should head to a place called Archie’s Atomic. Les tries to convince them not to go there, but is coerced into it._

_After a harrowing incident on the freeway (when a passed-out Mercedes wakes up Dean from his little catnap in the backseat after falling over into his lap and causes him to get an idea involving her and Charles’s flash camera), the group ends up at Shakey’s. There, when Dean wakes up to find himself on the floor of the backseat and Mercedes on top of him, he then puckers up his lips, all ready to kiss her; however, she unknowingly ruins the mood for him when she says she thinks she’s going to throw up. Luckily, Charles manages to get Mercedes out of the car and into Shakey’s in an attempt to sober her up with a soda. Dean then makes this really awesome speech to Les:_

> _**“Les, you’ve had to stand and watch as all the pretty girls drove off in some older jerk’s car — humiliation! I know — I’ve been through it. But that’s all over now! Les, that thing in your wallet — that’s no ordinary piece of paper. That is a driver’s license! And it’s not only a driver’s license. It’s an automobile license. And it’s not only an automobile license. It’s a license to live — a license to be free, a license to go wherever, whenever and with whomever you choose.”** _

_At the insistence of Dean, they put Mercedes in the car trunk, and decide to head off to Archie’s Atomic, where Dean is sure they can meet some more girls._

_They arrive, and the place seems exciting. But after they get some dinner, Charles accidentally ends up denting the door of a guy’s Pontiac GTO when he tries to retrieve the salt shaker he’d accidentally knocked onto the ground. The driver then attempts to smash the group’s windshield with a crowbar, causing Les to quickly take off (much to Dean’s frustration)._

_They end up almost being found out when going by a protest area (where Les’ sister Natalie and her boyfriend Karl are), before getting pulled over at a police checkpoint. Les gives over his school bus pass, but the situation almost takes a turn for the worse when the officer finds a sleeping Mercedes in the car trunk._

_However, the police checkpoint is dismantled when word comes that the protest has become a riot! The boys then decide to head home, but are sidelined when a drunken driver gets into the Cadillac, and drives off! Luckily, they managed to get Mercedes out of the trunk before this, and all pile into the drunk’s VW Bug._

_Les’ night gets worse as the driver veers all over the road, scratching up the car, and causing severe damage to it in the process; luckily, he manages to get into the car and stop it before it almost flies into a pit._

_Les manages to get his friends home, and get Mercedes back to her place; when he tells her it’s a long story, she asks if it has a happy ending. She claims she had a nice time, and kisses him._

_Les gets the car into the garage, just as his parents come downstairs, and his Dad finds him sleeping inside it. After Les wakes up and gets out of the car, his Dad is about to give Les a huge lecture:_

> _**“We had a college fund set aside for you — that’s gone now! You had free room and board, two trusting parents and a social life — all gone! You had a TV, a stereo, baseball, tennis racket, a skateboard, a bicycle — all gone! You even had sunlight and a window in your room!”**_

_When he says Les is lucky his mother didn’t go into labor, his wife corrects him, saying that she **is** in labor, causing Les’ father to do a double take in surprise when he realizes she is right this time around (unlike before, when she’d been pretending to be in labor for almost the whole night). Needing someone to drive, Dad relents and allows Les back behind the wheel._

_Arriving at a cross street, the family is thrown into turmoil when the forward drive on the car breaks, with the only option being to go in reverse. At the insistence of his family (and an encouraging smile from Rudy), Les throws the car in reverse, and manages to get his family safely to the hospital._

_Les’ Dad is shown to be impressed by his son’s driving skills when Les admits he learned them the previous night... but the father-son moment between them is ruined when they turn around to see a giant I-beam from a nearby construction site fall off a crane that had stopped working and crash onto the Cadillac, while Les and his father look on in shock._

_Some time later, Grandpa (Parley Baer) comes back for his car; the family is ready for him to get mad about it when he sees it. However, much to their surprise and puzzlement, he starts laughing instead. When Les’s father asks why, Grandpa puts the keys to his BMW in his hand and says, “Here, I had a little trouble with **your** car, too.”_

_Then, as if on cue, a tow truck pulls up — with Dad’s BMW shown to be smashed._

_As Grandpa laughs (in a “kids say the darnedest things” way) and applauds a little after Rudy makes the bluntly vulgar statement that Grandpa himself had said some time ago (causing Mom to hit Rudy on the shoulder), Dad then turns to Les, saying, “Uh, Les, you know how you said when you got your license, you wanted a BMW? Well, here you go — it’s all yours” before adding “Take good care of it” while laughing a little._

_However, Les replies, “Uh, thanks, Dad; it’s very generous of you. But, you know, I don’t need the BMW anymore.”_

_Mercedes then pulls up in her car — a white Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet — and honks the horn a little, before calling Les’ name with a smile and a wave._

_Les then adds, “I already have a Mercedes” before tossing the keys to the BMW back to his dad, who catches them. After hopping over the front door of Mercedes’ car, Les waves to the family and tells them not to wait up; he then laughs a little as he lowers himself into the driver’s seat and turns on the radio. As the song Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car by Billy Ocean begins playing, Les drives off down the road with Mercedes; the film fades to a blue screen, and the credits begin to roll._

* * *

Basically, I give this film two thumbs up (as do many others who have seen it and remember what it was like to be sixteen and getting a driver’s license), and I highly recommend it as well. :)

**Author's Note:**

> Nice feedback is very much appreciated, of course.. :)


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